IRS probe: 2 distinct approaches

They share the same goal: getting to the bottom of the Internal Revenue Service scandal.

But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, are taking very different approaches to their investigations of the embattled agency.

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From his perch, Issa is making waves on Sunday television and releasing loaded snippets of interviews conducted with IRS employees that Democrats say are misleading. Camp, meanwhile, is proceeding with more caution, avoiding political firestorms and working with the top Democrat on his panel to make requests that have turned up millions of documents at the IRS.

Norm Ornstein, an expert on Congress, said different investigative styles could harm the probes if they’re not coordinated.

“You’ll have investigators crawling around all over the place and bumping into each other,” he said. “You could have people who are interviewed multiple times by different investigators and may find that the stories they give are used or distorted in different ways.”

The contrasting approaches reflect the significantly different personalities of the two chairmen. While Issa is one of the most visible House Republicans with a reputation as the Obama administration’s chief inquisitor, Camp is a more straightforward Midwesterner who enjoys good relationships with some Democrats and has spent the past several years building a lawyerly case to overhaul the Tax Code.

A month into the scandal, the tension between the two committees is bubbling to the surface.

The biggest example: Issa’s decision earlier this month to release selected excerpts of interviews with IRS staffers to make the case that employees in Washington orchestrated the practice of targeting conservative groups applying for a tax exemption.

Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana, a senior Ways and Means Republican who chairs the panel’s Oversight subcommittee, criticized Issa’s tactics, saying the release of partial transcripts could “adversely alter our ability to get future information from other IRS employees.”

“Just simply from a process standpoint, you don’t want to do that and alter what others might say,” Boustany told POLITICO. “I really am concerned that it could tip this into the political realm rather than a true detailed investigation to get the facts out.”

He added: “A lot of this has to be done quietly, obviously, as we piece together what has happened, and once we piece it together and get the firm proof, then you can come out” and say what happened.

Issa, on the other hand, believes his panel has a responsibility to take a more public role.

“Chairman Issa has a philosophy that the public has a right to know,” said Frederick Hill, an Issa spokesman. “Sometimes we do have to balance that with the interest of an ongoing investigation.”

In other instances, it appears the committees have crossed their wires. Issa, for example, told reporters in mid-May that he planned to hold a hearing in which groups targeted by the IRS could tell their stories. Camp announced a hearing on the same topic a week later.

Aides to both panels wouldn’t say whether it was a joint decision to allow Camp to take the lead on the hearing.

The clashing philosophies could be on display again as soon as the committees decide how to haul Lois Lerner, the former leader of the scandal-plagued IRS division with oversight of tax-exempt groups, back to Capitol Hill. An Oversight source said Lerner, who was subpoenaed by Issa but took the Fifth Amendment, would have to appear before the committee in public if lawmakers want to question her on the claim of innocence she made before the panel last month before refusing to answer questions.